About.
Hey there. I'm James (JC) Zabel, a product designer in the Charlotte area. I studied Industrial Engineering at Clemson, a BS and then an MS with a focus on Human Factors Psychology (Go Tigers).
Fifteen years in, I've worked on wind energy at GE, Navy combat systems at Lockheed Martin, an IoT platform that grew past 20M devices at SnapAV, and AI-powered guidance in Azure at Microsoft. Different industries, mostly the same job: take something complicated and make the next decision obvious.
Outside of work I have three young kids, a weekly Starfinder group, and a fantasy football league I run. Most of my side projects start at one of those tables.
Career
Product design & design leadership, Azure
Microsoft
Designing agentic experiences in Azure Advisor that turn long lists of generic recommendations into the handful of decisions an enterprise customer actually needs to make. Led a UX team of 6 designers and researchers across Azure Advisor, CX Observe, and customer-health products, recognized as Azure X Manager of the Year for delivery results and people leadership. Earlier, led UX for internal Azure field platforms used by 4,000+ people across 10+ Microsoft organizations.
UX Engineer → UX Manager → Lead Data Analyst
SnapAV / SnapOne
Founding member of the OvrC team, starting as the lone designer and wearing every hat: design, user testing, front-end, back-end, QA, and feature development. Grew into UX Manager, leading a team of about 6 across two time zones through acquisitions including Control4. Helped take OvrC from an idea to the industry-leading remote management platform for integrators, now supporting 20M+ managed devices globally. Built the design system across all product lines and provided strategic design support for the $150M+ Connected Device category. Later founded SnapOne's data team as Lead Data Analyst, turning insights from its connected platforms into product strategy and quarterly direction for executives.
Human Systems Integration Engineer
Lockheed Martin
Modernized combat system interfaces for the Aegis BMD 5.1 program, updating legacy systems to a more modern architecture. Cut my teeth on rapid prototyping, user testing with active duty sailors, and iterating based on direct operator feedback.
Human Factors Engineer
General Electric
Worked in green energy, focused on the wind sector. Led risk assessments and built mitigation programs to reduce issues across multiple sectors nationwide.
Skills
Available for the interesting stuff.